Every Man for Himself (16 page)

My aunt took me to Italy to visit the crater of Vesuvius when I was eleven years old. We travelled to the summit on the funicular railway. From the station platform one glimpsed through cloud the curve of the shore at Naples, the sea and the city gleaming in a net of gold thrown by the setting sun. A seven course dinner, served before we set off, was included in the price of the ticket. It began with soup and a rack of lamb and ended with ice-cream. The dining compartment was loud with the noise of champing and swallowing. I furled my tongue round the lump of ice in my glass of lemonade and sucked it small.
Tie me, said Wallis
. The train was worked by ropes which owing to the extreme tension creaked alarmingly as we climbed by fits and starts, the outline of the mountain edge running parallel to our course. The angle of inclination began at forty degrees, increased to sixty-three and decreased again as we gained the upper station. Alighting in the fiery darkness we passed through a gate punched in a wall of lava and walked higher.
Not so fast, said Scurra
. One of our group was foolish enough to pick up a blackened cinder that rolled beneath his boot. He was a gentleman, yet the stream of obscenities that issued from his anguished mouth set the women in the party trembling. Till then the rim of the old crater had stood between us and the new eruptive cone, but as we left the ash-strewn path a glow of burning light riveted us to the spot. Suddenly, preceded by a sound which is impossible to describe – something like an almighty blast of wind in the naked branches of a winter forest, or the fall of a crested wave on a shingled beach – millions of glowing particles, from the size of a cannon-ball down to a tiny spark, spattered the air and erected a fretwork of fire across the black heavens. The smell of sulphur made me catch my breath.

Scurra said, ‘Well, that was very satisfactory, don’t you think?’

Wallis said, ‘I want to die.’ Their laughter swilled round the room.

Soon after, they left. I emerged on all fours like an animal, nose sniffing the unnatural odour that stung the air. They hadn’t bothered to plump up the cushions, nor remove the length of cord, now uncoiled like a snake, dangling from the back of the sofa. I entered the bathroom and with a square of wet soap wrote
fuck
on the glass above the basin. Then I returned to my stateroom and slammed the door.

My feelings of humiliation, rage even, were as nothing compared to the relief I felt at having escaped without being exposed. I shook at the thought of what might have happened if they had tired of the sofa and staggered to the bedroom. I could hardly have pretended I was inspecting the plumbing. There were three whole days left in which I would meet them daily, exchange pleasantries, drink with them. In their company I would surely act like a man demented, their secret lodged in my breast like a gun primed to blow my heart to pieces. How I hated him! How I wished her dead – and on the thought understood Adele’s smile of radiant grief. Fists clenched, the blood pounding in my ears, I paced the room. I couldn’t get out of my mind that length of cord on the sofa. I saw it duplicated in the hang of the undrawn curtains across the porthole, the electric wire protruding from the desk lamp. Looking wildly about I caught my mother’s painted eyes gazing at me from the wall. Tearing the portrait off its hook I rushed into the passageway and up on to the boat deck. On the way I roughly brushed against Mrs Straus, who, on the arm of her husband, was tottering down the turkey runner of the Grand Staircase. Mr Straus rounded on me angrily and, blundering lout that I’d become I raced on regardless.

I don’t know whether I really intended to throw the painting of my mother into the waves. True, I wanted to cast her from me. It was she, not the fetid old woman who counted gold each night, who had bound my wrists with string and tied me to the iron bolt of those half-closed shutters overlooking that stinking worm of water. Shivering in the icy air I leaned over the rail and on the instant was seized from behind.

Scurra’s voice said, ‘No, Morgan. No.’ He spun me round. I couldn’t read the expression in his eyes because the lamp-light glittered on his spectacles, but for once he no longer smiled and the set of his riven mouth, so lewdly employed but twenty minutes before, was grimly purposeful.

He wouldn’t let go of me, though I tried to shake him off. ‘No,’ he said again, and tightened his grip. I believe he thought it was myself I wanted to be rid of.

‘It was cruel of you,’ I shouted. ‘It was you who encouraged me to approach her.’

‘My life has gone in a flash,’ he said. ‘As yours will.’

‘Words,’ I crowed. ‘Just words.’

‘How else are we to be understood?’ he demanded.

‘I loved her,’ I whined. ‘I wanted to please her.’

‘We have but a short time to please the living,’ he said. ‘And all eternity to love the dead,’ and with that he prised the painting from my grasp and rubbed at her face with his sleeve. ‘Come inside,’ he implored. ‘There’s a good chap. It’s cold out here.’

‘You had no right,’ I muttered. ‘It was not the behaviour of a friend.’

‘My dear boy,’ he said. ‘Have you not yet learnt that it’s every man for himself?’

FIVE

 

Sunday, 14th April

Nothing lasts, neither joy nor despair. Having retired to bed considerably the worse for drink and hoping to die, I woke refreshed and full of optimism. Memories of the latter part of the previous night eluded me, though I remembered telling someone – either Hopper or Charlie – of my amorous encounter with Wallis in the foyer and receiving an assurance that when next we met she would behave as if nothing had happened. Indeed, I seemed to recall standing near her in the elevator when I was taken up to clearmy head, and she was smiling; this was probably wishful thinking. As for the earlier half of that momentous evening, beyond a slight twinge of guilt at having smeared that obscene verb on the bathroom glass, I’d banished the whole shameful business from my mind and resolved never to dwell on it again. Here, Sissy came once more to the rescue – she’d taught me long ago that if ever a frightening picture flew into my head I was to imagine a giant foot coming down to stamp it flat.

When McKinlay came in with the tea he unaccountably carried the painting of my mother under his arm. He said an affable gentleman in spectacles had given it to him first thing that morning. He made to replace it on the wall but I told him to leave it propped against the skirting board.

‘I hear we won’t be docking now until Wednesday morning,’ I said.

‘That was the case yesterday, sir. I understand our speed has increased since then and we might yet make it by Tuesday night. Of course, it’s not an easy matter to berth a ship of this size in darkness.’

‘I suppose not.’

‘But Captain Smith’s the man to do it, sir. I’ve sailed with him four times on the
Olympic
and believe me it’s an education to see him con the ship at full speed up the channels entering New York. There was one particular time, very tricky it was, sir . . . it could have ended badly. It made one flush with pride the way he swung her round, judging his distances to a nicety, she heeling over to the helm with only a matter of feet to spare between each end of the ship and the banks, and him standing cool as a cucumber with his wee dog at his side.’

‘I’ve noticed he doesn’t drink,’ I said. ‘Not even wine with his dinner.’

‘Not a drop, sir. But then, a man with drink in him is mostly out of control.’ I thought he looked at me too boldly and was about to remind him that he hadn’t been too steady on his pins the other afternoon when there was a knock at the door. It was Charlie, at which McKinlay, gathering my clothes up from the floor and holding them ostentatiously at arm’s length, left.

Charlie had come expecting to find me prostrate. ‘You were terribly squiffy last night,’ he said. ‘And morose. You kept wishing you were dead. Several times you came out with the most appalling language. Fortunately the girls weren’t present.’

‘Who brought me back here?’

‘The Jew with the curls. The one Mrs Morgan’s taken a shine to. He and I took you up on deck. You were frightfully sick. That’s probably why you look so well now.’

‘I feel brand new,’ I said, and meant it. ‘From now on I’m going to be as dull as ditch water and turn my life around. You’re talking to a serious man.’

‘You had cause,’ he said. ‘It must have been horrid for you, Wallis ticking you off and all.’ At this I started to think of the
all
and quickly summoned up the image of that giant foot.

‘If you really are going to be dull,’ he went on, ‘perhaps you’d spend the morning with me. They’re holding a church service in the saloon at ten.’ He stared at me so earnestly and so humbly I could have hugged him. ‘Dear, sweet Charlie,’ I replied, ‘I can think of nothing more exciting.’ At this, even his nose flushed pink.

Captain Smith conducted Divine Service. Passengers from all classes attended, those from the third fairly gawping to find themselves in such opulent surroundings. They were sent to stand at the front which was a mercy because some of the children smelled and many scratched their heads continuously. I couldn’t see Adele, but then, for her, a visit to the top decks hardly ranked as a novelty. Nor was Wallis present. I’d half hoped she would be, thinking she’d be less inclined to give me the cold shoulder in the middle of a religious service. Then again, it would ill suit her to adopt a holier than thou attitude when only a few hours before – here, I brought that foot down sharp.

Smith read the service from the company’s own prayer book. It didn’t seem all that different from the
Book of Common Prayer
except it appeared to go on longer. The orchestra accompanied the hymn singing. Charlie sang his head off. The cellist got an attack of hiccups; every time his chest jerked his bow bounced on the strings. My shoulders started to shake but Melchett shot me such a look of reproach that I checked myself. The only thing that kept me awake was the kerfuffle that broke out when a strapping woman from steerage belted a boy round the ear for fidgeting and he kicked her back. That and the singing of ‘Eternal Father Strong To Save’. Hearing those ragged voices begin the ascending plea,
O hear us when we cry to Thee for those in peril on the sea
, it was hard to remain unmoved. One or two ladies, overcome with emotion, audibly sniffed. I was idly studying the elaborate plasterwork of the ceiling when I became aware that someone at the front had turned round to look at me. It was Mrs Straus’s maid, who had once worked for Sissy. Instantly I remembered my disgraceful behaviour on the stairs.

As soon as the service was over I went in search of Mr and Mrs Straus, running them to earth in the Palm Court. They accepted my apology kindly enough. Mrs Straus said she couldn’t be cross with me this morning of all mornings, or anyone else for that matter, because she and Mr Straus anticipated communicating by wireless telegraphy with their son and his wife who were on their way to Europe on board the passing ship
Amerika
. She hadn’t the least notion of how such miracles were performed but was grateful they could be accomplished on her behalf. I asked Mr Straus if he’d been approached by a Mr Rosenfelder who was intending to visit Macy’s in the coming week. He said he hadn’t but if I would point him out the next time we were in the lounge he would willingly have a word with him.

Feeling virtuous I rejoined Melchett and spent a very dull half-hour indeed reading in the library. Or rather Charlie read. Every book I dipped into seemed to carry some sentence or other that reminded me of the night before. I had the steward scurrying up and down the library steps like a squirrel hastening to gather nuts before winter set in.

Finally I told Charlie I was in need of exercise and emerged on deck in time to hear the mighty hooting of the ship’s whistles, which, in accordance with company rules, required testing in mid-voyage. Sextants in hand, the ship’s officers crowded along the wing of the navigating deck, shooting the sun and calculating our position in the ocean. They wore their greatcoats for it was noticeable how far the temperature had dropped since yesterday. The sea was as black as coal, the white avenue in our wake pointing its arrow-head at the pale horizon. I was about to return indoors to fetch my own coat when Thomas Andrews, hatless and wearing a beautifully cut suit of dark blue serge, caught up with me and asked if he could have a quiet word. Oblivious of the cold and the continuing boom of the whistles he said he and his team had been monitoring the use of the writing room and were convinced that though it was extremely popular with the ladies it was over-large. It would be no more than commercial common-sense to reduce its size and convert the extra space into first class accommodation. Bearing in mind my satisfactory work as a draughtsman and knowing that my uncle wanted me to have more settled employment, he wondered if I would be interested in drawing up plans for such a project. It would afford both of us the opportunity to find out what I was capable of, though, of course, he couldn’t promise that any finished design would be used. He didn’t want me to answer yes or no at this moment. Would I come to his suite at two o’clock precisely?